Sunday, February 26, 2017

Central Park at night is not a safe place. When darkness falls, many harmful creatures appear in the middle of park, including hungry pigeons.A naive reader could think that pigeons are not a serious risk for humans, but in Home Alone 2, we can see a clear example of how to fear a wild pigeon flock.

The sequence is as follows: a massive flock of pigeons gathers in Central Park waiting to receive food and care from a Homeless lady.

She obviously was very fond of these creatures and loved to be surrounded by them. Meanwhile the protagonist was being chased by the two bad guys of the film. During his escape he meets the lady and her feathered gang.

Fortunately she is on the side of the protagonist and she helps him throwing a sticky mixture of pigeon food on the bad guys.

Soon, both of them are surrounded by hordes of hungry pigeons that literally cover them in an orgy of seeds, pigeon poo and scared humans. Fortunately, pigeons are vegetarians (as far as I know) so the bad guys survived this event but in a very bad nasty condition.

This scene is a clear example of how a big flock of tiny birds can definitively discourage and harm a medium--size mammals.

Details of the pigeon starring

Source: Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. Starring moment: 1:39:00

Pigeon activity: They create a feathered wall that blocks the bad guys to chase Kevin.